Farm workers to get shots next week

About 400 people per day targeted for inoculations at Leamington centre

The vaccination of local farm workers could begin in days, the Windsor-essex County Health Unit announced Friday.

Along with long-term care facilities for seniors, no other sector has been harder-hit during the pandemic. Essex County, which hosts one of the highest concentrations of greenhouse operations in North America, saw 50 COVID-19 outbreaks on farms in 2020, with approximately 2,700 cases among workers.

Two temporary foreign farm workers died after contracting the novel coronavirus and one farm was temporarily shut down due to the high numbers of workers infected by the highly contagious virus.

“Area farms were hard-hit by the pandemic last year and continue to experience challenges due to their congregate living settings and work settings,” said health unit CEO Theresa Marentette.

“We've been preparing buses for the last two weeks,” Joe Sbrocchi, general manager of the Ontario Vegetable Greenhouse Growers, said of the welcome news. He said local growers were advised that about 1,000 farm workers could be vaccinated next week, “if everything goes as expected.”

Marentette told reporters Friday the Moderna vaccine will be used for the farm worker rollout and the hope was to vaccinate about 400 people per day at Leamington's Nature Fresh Farms Recreation Centre.

The closing of a large local greenhouse operation last year was a scare for the agri-food sector and resulted in a big crop loss for the grower due to an outbreak.

“Last year, we had a catastrophic situation. And for the first time ever, they shut down a farm,” said Sbrocchi. “Can you imagine if they had done that to five or six farms?”

While having to decide who gets vaccinated at this stage, given the tight supply of doses in Canada, is “like walking a tightrope” for health authorities, Sbrocchi said it's a wise choice to target farm workers.

With thousands of essential foreign workers needed in the local agri-food sector to grow and harvest fresh food for Canadians, Leamington Mayor Hilda Macdonald agrees.

“It's a good move based on congregate living and congregate working — food production needs to continue,” she said.